


Little Things

by lost_spook



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Matilda - Roald Dahl
Genre: Community: dw_straybunnies, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-05
Updated: 2014-03-05
Packaged: 2018-01-14 16:11:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1272802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/pseuds/lost_spook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it’s the little things that count.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Things

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt left by Seiya234 on dw_straybunnies: In all three versions of Matilda-book, movie, musical – at the end, Matilda's parents have to leave in a hurry, and Matilda ends the book leaving with Miss Honey. My thought was, what if instead of dodgy business dealings/the mob/whatever that caused them to leave, the Doctor had a hand in that instead. Double points if there's a scene with him and Matilda. Triple extra points if it's the Seventh Doctor, who I had in mind.

“But why?” Ace halted beside the Doctor at the end of a very ordinary driveway, if one that was rather overgrown and grubby with cracked concrete in places. “Anyway, what am I supposed to say? What are they – aliens or something?”

“Something,” he said, becoming impenetrably enigmatic. “All too human, Ace. Just pretend to be the Avon lady.”

“No _way_ am I being the Avon lady!”

The Doctor turned. “Well, the milkman, the window cleaner, a directionally challenged tourist – whatever you prefer.”

“Get lost, Professor. Anyway, what are you going to be doing?”

“Popping back a week or so to write a letter,” he told her, with a smile. “Trust me, Ace. Small things can be vital on a cosmic scale.”

Ace sighed heavily. “I get that,” she said. “But you could explain sometimes, and I’m not being the bloody Avon lady, all right?”

*

The man who opened the door was not an attractive sight. In fact, Ace was tempted to claim she’d got the wrong number just to avoid looking at him any longer. Probably he could have looked better, maybe, but he’d taken no effort at all over himself – he was unshaven, unclean, scruffy and wearing a violent scowl.

“Yes?” he barked. “Whatever you want, you can go away!”

Ace put her chin up and got her foot in the door in time to get her toes bashed by his attempt to slam it. Lucky she had her Doc Martens, wasn’t it? “No, wait. You’ll want to hear about this, it’s a really good offer, right. A bargain, straight up. Trust me.”

“A bargain?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “I’m from Well Wicked Windows and we can do you a bang-up job on double-glazed windows for almost no cost at all.”

He glared harder. “I’m busy, and I don’t need windows!”

“Well, those you’ve got don’t look like they’d stand up to a bit of Nitro. Ours would. Guaranteed.”

He tried pushing the door shut again, but Ace wasn’t dumb enough to have removed her foot yet. “You don’t look like a double-glazing sales rep to me. And I don’t want any more windows. Got too many as it is!”

“Oy, what do you mean I don’t look like a rep? Are you being sexist? Is that it? You think ‘cos I’m a girl, I can’t sell windows?”

“Where’s your uniform?” he snapped. “And your badge! So you better get lost, or I’ll –”

“What, you’ll call the police?” Ace countered. “Yeah, right. I bet.” She’d summed him up all right. Her Mum had had a boyfriend like him once. For about a week. He’d been too low-life even by her standards. “Anyway,” she added, while he was busy turning purple with rage, “it’s mufti day at Well Wicked Windows. For charity. We pay 50p and wear what we like. And I’ve got a badge. I’ve got loads of badges. Look!” She pointed at her badge-covered jacket.

“Go away!” He achieved an even more violent shade of magenta, and then finally pushed the door shut on her. She let him. Hopefully, she’d given the Doctor long enough. A few minutes, he’d said, that was all. And there were limits. She wasn’t really cut out to be a door to door salesperson. Or a door to door anything, really. Demolition was more in her line. She did wistfully contemplate proving what she’d said about his windows and the nitro (which she didn’t have with her, honest, cross her heart and hope to die, which she might if she got the timers wrong again), but decided that she’d better not, not if the Professor had plans.

*

“I really hope there was a good reason for that,” Ace said, when she met the Doctor again a few metres down the road. “I looked a right idiot.”

The Doctor smiled at her, and then lifted his hat as a young woman and a small child dashed past them, and up the same driveway. “Delaying tactics. I told you that much, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but I don’t get it. I mean, he was a total creep, but not an alien invader, so –”

The Doctor leaned towards her. “Ace. I’ll show you. And then you can tell me if you think it was worth it.”

“Show me?”

“We’ll pop back to the TARDIS and stop off a week or two into the future. You’ll see.”

 

***

 

The Doctor walked along beside the small girl, while Ace followed behind with her teacher and newly adopted parent, Miss Honey.

“Happy, are you?” he asked the child. “Relatively speaking, of course, given the nature of the universe.”

Matilda nodded. “Oh, yes.” Her earnestness in reply was almost too much for her small frame.

“Good. I’m glad to hear it.” Then he paused, noticing that she was watching him rather intently, with a small frown on her face. “What is it?”

“Oh,” said Matilda. “I’m sorry. I was reading your jumper. I think you have too much punctuation and not enough words.”

The Doctor glanced down at himself. Nobody had ever put it quite like that before. He winked at his small friend. “You could be right. I do hope you have some better things to read at home?”

Matilda nodded. “Oh, yes. I like Mr Dickens and Mr Shakespeare,” she offered, shyly.

“What a coincidence,” said the Doctor. “So do I.”

*

“Well?” said the Doctor, once they’d left the other two behind.

Ace screwed up her face. “ _That_ was what it was all about? Just making sure that creep and his family would stay there long enough so that Jennifer Honey could keep Matilda?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Ace grinned widely, and put her arm through his. “All right, then, Professor. You win. We did good.”

“As will they,” murmured the Doctor, and tapped her nose, before they made their way back to the TARDIS. “As will they.”


End file.
